Another day at the Prytania Theatre here at the New Orleans Film Festival, and little else; day 5 saw screenings of five movies, including three documentaries, a 2012 South by Southwest favorite and a film that will almost certainly be a major Oscar contender this year. It was, overall, a pretty great day, having seen what’s now my favorite film of the festival and one that will certainly end up being one of my favorites of the year.

So I guess I’ll get to it:

“Hollywood Hair” (***½ out of four)

Screenwriter Juliet Snowden, who with her writing partner/husband, Stiles White, has written movies like “Knowing” and “The Possession,” makes her documentary debut with “Hollywood Hair,” a decades-in-the-making look at a very unusual Los Angeles hair salon, filled with a cast of characters that would make Errol Morris double-take. Very much in the spirit of Morris, the film is a compassionate and quirky portrait of a de facto family who work and hang out and live at Hollywood Hair, a salon offering $3 haircuts at which its proprietor, Tony Morales, embraces troubled people from all walks of life and offers food, support and whatever else they might need. Snowden, who gave a post-film Q&A, said that she came across Hollywood Hair when she first moved to Los Angeles with no car at a time when a $3 haircut was just what she needed. She filmed “Hollywood Hair” over a period of a year and a half in the late ‘90s. The period of putting together the film was clearly well-spent, as Snowden has a storyteller’s eye for pacing and flow. In that way, more than with most first-time documentary films, “Hollywood Hair” is just a pleasure to experience.

“Bayou Blue” (** out of four)

A slickly-shot true-crime documentary about a grisly series of murders in the Houma, La., area, “Bayou Blue” is promising in the outset and tells a worthy story. But it grew numbing for me, and its storytelling gets disorienting, leaving some noticeable gaps in its presentation of the case. Which is not to say “Bayou Blue” is a bad film or not a powerful one, but that despite its visual flair, it lacks some refinement in its organization. (This was particularly noticeable, again, coming straight into “Bayou Blue” from “Hollywood Hair.”) The film explores the case of Ronald Dominique, a serial killer who from 1997 to 2006 raped and killed 23 men in the Houma area and largely impoverished bayou communities. This spree was largely unreported by the national media, but it shocked the largely quiet rural area to its core, as families were rocked by losing sometimes a number of young men to the same killer. With interviews with surviving family and law enforcement, and by playing the audio statements of Dominique himself, “Bayou Blue” is stark and disturbing, but it’s easy to get lost sometimes in the details, particularly when some things are alluded to and not explored until later in the film.

“Herman’s House (**½ out of four)

I had no prior knowledge of the Angola 3 – maybe this is another situation where a local audience probably got a lot more out of this film than I ever would – but “Herman’s House” is a moving, if a bit overlong, documentary on social activism through the power of art, even if by the film’s end a lack of resolution (which continues to this day, so that’s not the filmmaker’s fault at all) seems a bit unsatisfying from a storytelling perspective. Herman Wallace has been in solitary confinement at the Louisiana state penitentiary for almost 37 years in a cell roughly 6-feet by 9-feet for 23 hours every day. Originally sentenced for a bank robbery, Wallace and two fellow prisoners were sentenced to life and to solitary confinement after being convicted of the murder of a prison guard, though the evidence found at the scene does not support the notion that they were involved in any way. A New York-based artist and activist named Jackie Sumell starts a correspondence with Wallace that leads to an art exhibit to promote awareness for what most believe is a “cruel and unusual punishment.” She constructs a scale model of his cell, and he dictates and designs his dream house, which Sumell creates blueprints of. It soon becomes Wallace’s dream that the house is actually built as a community center for at-risk youth, and Jackie heads to New Orleans to acquire the land and see it done, while working as Wallace’s advocate to get him released into the general population, if not out of prison entirely. “Herman’s House” is for a long time a fascinating look at the artistic process as social activism, though once the project is mired in New Orleans bureaucracy and the endless search for land, I feel a lot of the steam comes out of the film. Still, it’s a worthy movie and an interesting cause, which you can read about at www.hermanshouse.org.

“Gimme the Loot” (*** out of four)

Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sophia (Tashiana Washington) are the two teenage protagonists of the Bronx-set comedy “Gimme the Loot,” following these two would-be graffiti artists over the course of a couple days as they set their sights on tagging the Citi Field Home Run Apple, which pops up every time the New York Mets hit a home run. It’s a silly goal, sure, but a goal would-be graffiti artists looking to get some respect and credibility aspire toward, even if it’s completely impossible. But Malcolm knows a guy who wants $500 to let them into the stadium, and “Gimme the Loot” follows the two tough-talking but sweet and bumbling teens as they try by any means necessary to get that money. Things don’t work out for them much, and “Gimme the Loot” mines a lot of comedy out of this incident, but it’s mostly an amiable, ambling character study that follows the silly conversation between the two friends who don’t really know how to handle the romantic feelings they have for one another, and while the stakes are never all that high (because the two can’t seem to get any of their plans off the ground in the first place), it’s cute and funny throughout.

“Silver Linings Playbook (**** out of four)

David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” is a return to the anarchic comedy stylings of his previous films “Flirting With Disaster” and “I Heart Huckabees” – both among the funniest films of their respective decades – and “Silver Linings Playbook” is not only destined to join them as another excellent entry in Russell’s filmography but will likely be massively popular with audiences, critics and awards bodies, much in the way his previous film, “The Fighter,” really connected with people. A crowd-pleaser that hits the right notes and keeps a tone, with its sharp performances and screenplay, that avoids Hollywood schmaltz that could have mired it, “Silver Linings Playbook” won over the festival crowd almost from the beginning. Bradley Cooper stars as Pat, a man recently released from a mental institution after having a nervous breakdown upon discovering his wife’s unfaithfulness. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he is determined to beat his condition without medication, reach an optimum physical and mental state by exercise and staying positive and win back his wife (despite all evidence, including a restraining order, suggesting this will not be possible). His parents (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver) warily allow him to try this plan out, despite his occasional manic episodes and his father’s preoccupation with the Philadelphia Eagles. (His father’s football fandom and “superstitions” suggest that even so-called “normal” people might have some degree of mental illness, which is one of the understated but welcome observations Russell makes.) Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a troubled young widow and sister-in-law of one of his friends, and they instantly start a bizarre sort of friendship, that, this being a romantic comedy, grows into something more. But not quite how you’d expect; Russell smartly subverts the standard tropes of the genre, placing the movie on the shoulders of his great actors giving great performances. Cooper has never been better; Lawrence, who has been great in movies as small as “Winter’s Bone” (for which she received the first of what will probably be many Oscar nominations) and as big as “The Hunger Games,” gives another great performance here. Both are probably bound for Oscar nominations, as will be De Niro, who hasn’t been as affecting as he is here in years; Lawrence will probably win. “Silver Linings Playbook” is just a great, funny movie about topics people don’t usually like to joke or laugh about, which gives it its power and its edge and keeps it away from being … well, from being what the trailer made it look like. This movie opens on Nov. 21 in wide release; I recommend it highly.

Coming tomorrow: Well … I’m not sure. I’m due a break, right? We’ll see what day 6 holds for me but what it will probably hold is some napping. And maybe the film “Starlet,” and maybe another screening of “It’s a Disaster,” but more than likely napping. Turns out your eyes need a break after five straight days of doing little but watching movies.

About This Blog

Another day at the Prytania Theatre here at the New Orleans Film Festival, and little else; day 5 saw screenings of five movies, including three documentaries, a 2012 South by Southwest favorite and a film that will almost certainly be a major Oscar contender this year. It was, overall, a pretty great day, having seen what’s now my favorite film of the festival and one that will certainly end up being one of my favorites of the year.

So I guess I’ll get to it:

“Hollywood Hair” (***½ out of four)

Screenwriter Juliet Snowden, who with her writing partner/husband, Stiles White, has written movies like “Knowing” and “The Possession,” makes her documentary debut with “Hollywood Hair,” a decades-in-the-making look at a very unusual Los Angeles hair salon, filled with a cast of characters that would make Errol Morris double-take. Very much in the spirit of Morris, the film is a compassionate and quirky portrait of a de facto family who work and hang out and live at Hollywood Hair, a salon offering $3 haircuts at which its proprietor, Tony Morales, embraces troubled people from all walks of life and offers food, support and whatever else they might need. Snowden, who gave a post-film Q&A, said that she came across Hollywood Hair when she first moved to Los Angeles with no car at a time when a $3 haircut was just what she needed. She filmed “Hollywood Hair” over a period of a year and a half in the late ‘90s. The period of putting together the film was clearly well-spent, as Snowden has a storyteller’s eye for pacing and flow. In that way, more than with most first-time documentary films, “Hollywood Hair” is just a pleasure to experience.

“Bayou Blue” (** out of four)

A slickly-shot true-crime documentary about a grisly series of murders in the Houma, La., area, “Bayou Blue” is promising in the outset and tells a worthy story. But it grew numbing for me, and its storytelling gets disorienting, leaving some noticeable gaps in its presentation of the case. Which is not to say “Bayou Blue” is a bad film or not a powerful one, but that despite its visual flair, it lacks some refinement in its organization. (This was particularly noticeable, again, coming straight into “Bayou Blue” from “Hollywood Hair.”) The film explores the case of Ronald Dominique, a serial killer who from 1997 to 2006 raped and killed 23 men in the Houma area and largely impoverished bayou communities. This spree was largely unreported by the national media, but it shocked the largely quiet rural area to its core, as families were rocked by losing sometimes a number of young men to the same killer. With interviews with surviving family and law enforcement, and by playing the audio statements of Dominique himself, “Bayou Blue” is stark and disturbing, but it’s easy to get lost sometimes in the details, particularly when some things are alluded to and not explored until later in the film.

“Herman’s House (**½ out of four)

I had no prior knowledge of the Angola 3 – maybe this is another situation where a local audience probably got a lot more out of this film than I ever would – but “Herman’s House” is a moving, if a bit overlong, documentary on social activism through the power of art, even if by the film’s end a lack of resolution (which continues to this day, so that’s not the filmmaker’s fault at all) seems a bit unsatisfying from a storytelling perspective. Herman Wallace has been in solitary confinement at the Louisiana state penitentiary for almost 37 years in a cell roughly 6-feet by 9-feet for 23 hours every day. Originally sentenced for a bank robbery, Wallace and two fellow prisoners were sentenced to life and to solitary confinement after being convicted of the murder of a prison guard, though the evidence found at the scene does not support the notion that they were involved in any way. A New York-based artist and activist named Jackie Sumell starts a correspondence with Wallace that leads to an art exhibit to promote awareness for what most believe is a “cruel and unusual punishment.” She constructs a scale model of his cell, and he dictates and designs his dream house, which Sumell creates blueprints of. It soon becomes Wallace’s dream that the house is actually built as a community center for at-risk youth, and Jackie heads to New Orleans to acquire the land and see it done, while working as Wallace’s advocate to get him released into the general population, if not out of prison entirely. “Herman’s House” is for a long time a fascinating look at the artistic process as social activism, though once the project is mired in New Orleans bureaucracy and the endless search for land, I feel a lot of the steam comes out of the film. Still, it’s a worthy movie and an interesting cause, which you can read about at www.hermanshouse.org.

“Gimme the Loot” (*** out of four)

Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sophia (Tashiana Washington) are the two teenage protagonists of the Bronx-set comedy “Gimme the Loot,” following these two would-be graffiti artists over the course of a couple days as they set their sights on tagging the Citi Field Home Run Apple, which pops up every time the New York Mets hit a home run. It’s a silly goal, sure, but a goal would-be graffiti artists looking to get some respect and credibility aspire toward, even if it’s completely impossible. But Malcolm knows a guy who wants $500 to let them into the stadium, and “Gimme the Loot” follows the two tough-talking but sweet and bumbling teens as they try by any means necessary to get that money. Things don’t work out for them much, and “Gimme the Loot” mines a lot of comedy out of this incident, but it’s mostly an amiable, ambling character study that follows the silly conversation between the two friends who don’t really know how to handle the romantic feelings they have for one another, and while the stakes are never all that high (because the two can’t seem to get any of their plans off the ground in the first place), it’s cute and funny throughout.

“Silver Linings Playbook (**** out of four)

David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” is a return to the anarchic comedy stylings of his previous films “Flirting With Disaster” and “I Heart Huckabees” – both among the funniest films of their respective decades – and “Silver Linings Playbook” is not only destined to join them as another excellent entry in Russell’s filmography but will likely be massively popular with audiences, critics and awards bodies, much in the way his previous film, “The Fighter,” really connected with people. A crowd-pleaser that hits the right notes and keeps a tone, with its sharp performances and screenplay, that avoids Hollywood schmaltz that could have mired it, “Silver Linings Playbook” won over the festival crowd almost from the beginning. Bradley Cooper stars as Pat, a man recently released from a mental institution after having a nervous breakdown upon discovering his wife’s unfaithfulness. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he is determined to beat his condition without medication, reach an optimum physical and mental state by exercise and staying positive and win back his wife (despite all evidence, including a restraining order, suggesting this will not be possible). His parents (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver) warily allow him to try this plan out, despite his occasional manic episodes and his father’s preoccupation with the Philadelphia Eagles. (His father’s football fandom and “superstitions” suggest that even so-called “normal” people might have some degree of mental illness, which is one of the understated but welcome observations Russell makes.) Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a troubled young widow and sister-in-law of one of his friends, and they instantly start a bizarre sort of friendship, that, this being a romantic comedy, grows into something more. But not quite how you’d expect; Russell smartly subverts the standard tropes of the genre, placing the movie on the shoulders of his great actors giving great performances. Cooper has never been better; Lawrence, who has been great in movies as small as “Winter’s Bone” (for which she received the first of what will probably be many Oscar nominations) and as big as “The Hunger Games,” gives another great performance here. Both are probably bound for Oscar nominations, as will be De Niro, who hasn’t been as affecting as he is here in years; Lawrence will probably win. “Silver Linings Playbook” is just a great, funny movie about topics people don’t usually like to joke or laugh about, which gives it its power and its edge and keeps it away from being … well, from being what the trailer made it look like. This movie opens on Nov. 21 in wide release; I recommend it highly.

Coming tomorrow: Well … I’m not sure. I’m due a break, right? We’ll see what day 6 holds for me but what it will probably hold is some napping. And maybe the film “Starlet,” and maybe another screening of “It’s a Disaster,” but more than likely napping. Turns out your eyes need a break after five straight days of doing little but watching movies.